Five Senses Box Set

by Andre Norton

  Irasmus’s latest captive had not closed her eyes again, for she did not want to invite any more visions that led nowhere useful and left her with nothing of value. Yet now it seemed that the murk about her was broken by shadows. Cerlyn’s first fear of some torture contrived by the Dark Lord was quickly dispelled, but she did know that it was by his will that this barrier rose between her and what reached to meet her with aid.

  The chain rattled against the wall as the girl straightened her body, rising to her feet. Her mind stumbled as she sought to recall patterns of power she had long carefully repressed and used only with the two she had once trusted.

  “Who are you?”

  She spoke the question, then shook her head in frustration and anger, realizing that the sorcerous shield that darkened her sight also deafened her ears and mind.

  The shades wavered and flickered, now nearly solid, now mere wisps. However, as Cerlyn watched them, it became evident that, though unable to communicate by the ways she knew, they were fighting—yes, struggling fiercely—to come to her, and that they were of the Light no one talent-born could fail to know.

  Suddenly she saw two faces, not connected with the shadows themselves but rather projected by some magical art. One belonged to a girl, perhaps her own age but certainly no daughter of this stricken land.

  The face of this stranger bore no marks of privation,fear, or hatred. Instead, there was a kind of ecstasy welling up in those large eyes, as if they beheld some wonder they welcomed with joy.

  But—the face beside it! Cerlyn snarled. The traitor, the betrayer of his own kin, the shadow of Irasmus—he whom she had seen all too clearly only a short time ago. This was Fogar Demon-Son, and truly he was worthy of that name—

  Or was he?

  His face, like the unknown girl’s, was also serene, and—But this could not be so! Light did not join hands with Dark. It could not, for then nothing would exist. Still, as Cerlyn looked upon the features of the boy, she did not see the taint she fully expected. And, strangest of all, his countenance—which lay open to her now as though they were, indeed, kin to trust one another—resembled that of the girl, and closely.

  She who, even as a shadow here, seemed the very symbol of freedom, might have been a cherished one of Fogar’s own blood; however, such happy kinship did not exist—not in the clanless world Cerlyn had known from birth. And, though this vision had stretched her talent sorely thin, the wisewomen’s fosterling was sure that she could reach out her hand and touch the cheek nearest her. Somewhere, its owner did have life, and now, at this time, if not this place.

  The faces began to waver and ripple; then, with the suddenness of a knife falling to cut a cord, they vanished. Yet in their place for an instant was . . . something else. Cerlyn’s hand, still half lifted to reach for the now-vanished girl, flew to her lips to stifle any sound. She recognized the symbol of Her Who Walksthe Clouds, and it could only be summoned by one who gave her full allegiance.

  Then it was all gone—the Dark’s force wall, the Light’s shadow play and what it had shown her. Cerlyn swayed back against the rough stone, letting her shaking body be supported by its solidity. She felt as if all of her small power had been drawn from her for that shaping.

  As she sank into sleep, however, she was granted one final insight: the certainty that a pattern was being woven here, and that she was to be a part of it—if Irasmus did not dispose of her first.

  The tower’s master, in a chamber well above Cerlyn’s cell, had not attempted to delve into her mind this night, though the tabletop before him was covered with pieces of parchment on which were inked spells, descriptions of rituals, and other arcane formulae. Frustration gnawed him. In all these seasons, he had not been able in any way to penetrate the Forest—there had always been a barrier that had swallowed up every attempt at drawing forth power. And now, since the shocking death of the Forest beast man and the later but equally violent end of Karsh, Irasmus had no mind to send even the gobbes near the place.

  Not that he had dispatched the head of his band of horrors to the woods, which strongly suggested the gobbe’s death and the subsequent return of his mutilated body to the Valley were in the nature of another warning. The mage thought he had an idea of who might be lurking there among the trees; yet how could the arch-fiend lords he knew of strike any bargain with the Wind?

  The wizard needed eyes and ears to enter where all his present skills could not penetrate. Perhaps he had made a good beginning in that direction now. Only time would tell—and time might be far from a friendly ally. He was sure that the mages in the Place of Learning strove to monitor his every act and could not help picking up the energy emanations from some of his sorceries. They were not dullards, save inasmuch as they were content to observe but not to react. Yet might there not come a day, if the Wise felt the threat to be sufficient, when they would take their power in hand and come forth, as they had done once so many generations ago?

  Resolutely pushing that thought away, Irasmus reached out and pulled one of the papers to him. It bore no words but only a column of small signs and a sprawling line along the right side that might be compared, with some imagination, to the eastern ridge of the Valley rising toward the Forest. Along the line was set a series of yellow dots, and these had been impressed on the page so deeply that the point of the drawing tool had driven into the surface.

  As yet, according to the gobbes who were overseeing this planting, no sign had been given that those of the Forest noted how close the seeders had approached their own territory. This reassurance notwithstanding, Irasmus had raised all the wards that could be erected.

  Pushing aside the scrap of map, he stared down at a second strip of notes. On this paper was carefully depicted a plant—one with a huge bulbous root. Its growth followed a fanwise pattern, with other tough stems appearing along the ribs to break ground. Plainly, it both sprouted and spread in a way that madeit difficult to control. Good enough—one must never overlook any weapon, no matter how humble or seemingly insignificant.

  The Dark Lord’s irritation was somewhat soothed by future visions of just what would come of his planting, once its green phalanx truly attacked the Forest. At last he yawned and rose to retire; tomorrow, he would have other and more important matters to deal with.

  The sorcerer had slipped into his bed when, in spite of its ample fur robes, he felt a chill. Quickly he made mental rounds of the wards but could find no evidence that any had been breached. Using talent . . . power . . . Drifting into sleep, Irasmus thought of him who might (or might not) be approached. He encouraged himself once more with the conviction that That One would look so favorably upon any who unlocked the gate between their worlds that the opener could expect more power flowing to him than he had ever believed it possible to command.

  Fogar lay on his pallet. Piling stones was not the easiest of occupations on the muscles, nor did the fact that he must keep the discovery he had made today strictly to himself bring any sleep-coaxing ease to his mind.

  Over and over tonight the boy had washed his hands and arms, as well as any other portion of his flesh that had chanced to touch those rocks having the feel of slime, before he could bring himself to touch food; and still he unconsciously rubbed his fingers back and forth across the bedcovering.

  The master, he knew, had been hunting those same foul-feeling stones; but what of the two others theapprentice had uncovered during the day’s work—those which had seemed energized by the very substance of the Light? He was certain that the dark mage was not aware of their existence, or else they would surely have been detected. Fogar’s eyes gleamed in the dark like a tree cat’s about to leap onto the back of an unsuspecting prey. He had found a weapon, and he had only to learn when to use it, where—and how.

  21

  FALICE TRIED TO FIT HERSELF INTO AN ANGLE FROM which she could see as much as possible through the rough window Peeper had made for her. Sassie was pressed tightly against her and was being unusually quiet. She seemed as eage
r as her furless sister to see what lay beyond; yet instinct triumphed over impulse, and the cubling remained carefully hidden.

  Some distance from the brush that rimmed the Forest’s edge, the valley began. Hansa’s fosterling had been shown by the Wind in the Stone enough to recognize that blighted land in all its dreariness. The broad expanses before her were barren, not only of trees but of all other vegetation save a short grass—a rank growth having an unhealthy yellow shade that Falice, used to the lushly fertile Forest land, found very distasteful.

  This coarse stuff was being torn from resisting rootsby workers who crawled on calloused knees like drought-enfeebled herd beasts. But—

  The human girl caught at the small Sasqua as if her discovery might cause Sassie to be snatched from her hands and thrust into that sorry company. For the laborers were children, a little older than mere cublings but not yet approaching their time of full youth.

  Both males and females toiled in that band, for their worn single garments, ash-brown as the soil being uncovered by their efforts, hardly covered their bodies; and they often had to pause and pull those shifts up, exposing skin as brown and rough as tree bark.

  No talking could be heard, nor did they even give signs from one to another that they knew their laboring neighbors. For this, Falice saw a good reason.

  These slaves had a driver in control. The girl shivered. His kind she had been shown by virtue of the Stone’s window, and nothing existed in all the Forest as monstrously shaped, or mindlessly cruel, as this—thing. Fighting nausea when a vagrant breeze brought a puff of its stink and wondering that even the Wind could bear to touch that carcass, the Forest girl forced herself to look at the creature closely. It walked like a man, but its shoulders were a little hunched so that its long arms hung to a point where talons, each as long as her own fingers, now and then brushed the upturned earth. The skin was a sickly yellow-green and dotted with huge warts. Hair appeared only as an unkempt snarl of locks nearly as thick as choke-vine tendrils and standing stiffly from the all but neckless head. The lower jaw and its portion of the face presented an outline like the muzzle of no natural animal. This was agobbe, one of the servants of him who had poisoned the valley land.

  Its sole clothing was a wide belt, crudely patched in places, to which was strapped a long-bladed knife in a stained sheath. But now the nightmare also went armed with a lash it wielded with vigor, snapping at first one, then another of its charges, while whistling and gibbering to itself. Behind it in the field stood a rude cart, a mere platform on wheels, on which had been piled some lumpy bags.

  Now it stamped along that section of the ground where the grass had already been rooted up and the clumps thrown aside. Partway down that march, it stopped suddenly, its beast snout swinging as though it saw easily through the brush and knew it was being watched.

  Falice’s grasp of Sassie tightened; but the cubling made no move, nor did her brother. The monster had raised one of its dangling paws and was stretching it toward the Forest, its head cocked on one side. It might be gauging a distance—or narrowing the range of its search.

  After a few moments, either frustrated in its efforts to locate its would-be prey or postponing the pleasure of pursuit for the time being, it gave a throaty growl. This noise appeared to be a signal, for now, of all the children who had dropped where they stood for a rare space of rest when their overseer’s back was turned, two struggled back to their feet and hurried into action, as if they feared at every step that the lash would fall. It took their combined strengths to tumble one of the sacks from the cart, and they had to unite to pull the crude bag back to their labor area.

  The gobbe waved the workers back, and they obeyed hastily. Thrusting a talon into a loop of the bag’s string, he broke it in two. Out of that sack rolled a smaller one, that the demon lifted to his mouth and used his fangs to tear open.

  Falice could not be sure what he held. From this distance, it looked like small stones of a uniform size. The pebbly things also bore a polish, as if they had been fingered for seasons by the silver hands of a river, for the girl could distinguish a faint shine about the heap.

  As Irasmus’s creature picked the first of these stones from the pile, the Wind returned—not in wild gusts but scarcely forceful enough to make the leaves shiver. Yet what it bore and poured into the minds of the three hidden watchers was a sight so alien to any natural life they knew that they could only watch dumbly as the Breath displayed a living weapon that was meant to strike against their very refuge.

  Those things were—seeds! Planted and nourished by the liquid the gobbe had begun to sprinkle from the skin bag handed to him by another child slave, they would dig themselves in, putting forth not one root but a nest of them. Out from each of those roots would, in turn, rise spikes of growth. Under the tutelage of the Wind, Falice learned that the army of plants would creep forward, through the bordering brush, meant first to protect the Valley from any attack by the Forest and then to invade the Green Realm and make that country its own. Let any attempt to cut or tear one of the plants from the earth when it was thoroughly entrenched, and its touch would rust metal, flay skin from the hand that touched it.

  The creepers in the soil, those worms and beetleswhose small lives had their place in the order of the world, would swiftly die. And any healthy greenery the hell-sprung growth could touch would rot and crumble into nothingness—perhaps even the giants among the Forest trees. Truly, thought the girl as she watched in amazement and fear, such seeds had been garnered from the deepest storehouses of the Dark!

  Emboldened by the enormity of their threat, Falice dared mind-touch the Life Breath. What do we against such a peril, Wind?

  The answer came straightaway. Let warning be given; let our furred children know that their minds will be touched, so the years flee and they remember an earlier time; and let this death sowing here and now be stopped!

  It was Peeper who moved first. Throwing back his head, Hansa’s son gave a cry such as his human sister had never before heard; then, using a weak spot in the brush which he had apparently noted, he leaped forward.

  The gobbe went into a half crouch, spilling the seeds broadcast, its wide mouth suddenly lipless as great fangs appeared. It tried to unsheathe the knife it wore, but Peeper was already on it. His mighty club sounded a loud crack as it met the monster’s skull, sending the demon flying backward to strike the cart. The rickety transport crashed to the ground, and the slave driver lay still, a ruin among the ruins.

  Thin, shrill cries arose from the children; and they would have fled had not Falice, accompanied by Sassie, emerged through the brush broken by Peeper. Once more the girl called upon the Wind. About the fast-scattering youngsters arose a breeze, far from asstrong as it would have been in the Forest, yet enough to quiet the little ones’ fears until the girl could reach them herself.

  They stood staring at her now, coming slowly together until they were huddled once more in a group, as if they needed the nearness of their own kind. Used as she was to the exuberance of Sassie and the other Sasqua cubs, Falice could feel the terror of the Valley children smite her like a blow across the face.

  She could never have calmed and collected them without the Life Breath, but now there was a warning in its voice: its powers, for this time, were rapidly being exhausted. The girl and her Sasqua sister circled in behind the half-dozen small bodies as, upon those same ravaged slopes in a time long gone, dogs had skillfully herded sheep.

  The starveling waifs retreated before their strange new keepers, heading toward the rim of the Forest. Almost as soon as the two had gotten their charges safely under the trees, they spied Hansa and three of the Forest’s other children coming to meet them.

  Fogar was listening intently to what Irasmus was saying the next morning as the sorcerer pointed out a design inked on a square of parchment large enough to accommodate a far-traveler’s map.

  “The stones you feel”—the mage paused, and his eyes were very intent on his apprentice, wat
ching for any reaction to that phrase—“must be placed so, the space of two hands apart and in a line marching the guide. This you will do alone, and you will be as quick as possible about it. More other stones will be brought, for it is doubtful”—he glanced at the boy’s pile—“thatthese will be enough to trace the inner path as well. Now—get you to it!”

  Despite this final exhortation, Irasmus did not ride off at once but rather sat as Fogar, suppressing his disgust at what he handled, set the first and then the second of the rock discs into place. The result was not unlike the beginning of a walk of stepping-stones. Certainly the sketch from which he worked was plain enough: the discs were to be placed spiral-fashion, curving inward and around several times until they reached a certain point.

  Those land grubbers, who had been busy since before dawn clearing this space just outside the tower’s courtyard wall, hunkered down unnoticed now and prepared to watch, as if Fogar were on the verge of performing an intricate spell.

  However, the gobbes, who had driven them all hither and now prowled about their company on guard, were not so eagerly anticipating the action ahead. The boy was familiar enough with the demons’ behavior to realize they were showing signs of uneasiness. They had drawn into a knot of their kind, and the gaze of their bulbous eyes swung from their master to his apprentice and back again. Still, if the creatures felt inclined to dispute this path building, none did so.

  Fogar worked with elaborate care. In order to make sure each stone was in its proper place, he measured with a stick, then dug its point into the soil to mark where the next stone must be set. His body might be laboring like any of the folk of duns, but his mind was alert. His sadly fragmentary dreams not far in the past had shown him a portion of the very work in which he now found himself engaged; and within those visionshad lain answers he must now force out of hiding. To search so was like walking down a long corridor where many doors lay on either hand. Each was closed, its surface blank of any hint of what lay within, yet still he must go seeking the right one.